Elizabeth Palley

Challenges of Rights-Based Law Implementing the Least Restrictive Environment Mandate

The least restrictive environment provision of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 1997) is an example of how American laws written to address structural barriers for people with disabilities may be constrained or circumvented by the American rights-based legal system. This article provides a background on rights-based and social relations approaches to policy implementation, reviews the relevant case law, reviews the economic implications of the IDEA, addresses institutional structural factors and concludes with policy recommendations.

Inspiring and Training Students for Social Action: Renewing a Needed Tradition

In social work, it is believed that certain knowledge and skills are learned more effectively through experience than through didactic classroom content. Members of the faculty of a school of social work have developed a Social Action Day to reinforce curriculum and translate into practice material about advocacy and ethical responsibilities for social action; show the breadth of social work practice; and enhance the schools sense of community. The authors share their experience to inspire other social work faculty, so that they are better able to foster student interest and passion for political action that may generate social change.

The Diffusion of Disability Rights Policy: A Focus on Special Education in South Korea.

This article examines the development of South Korean special education policy and suggests that different strategies of policy diffusion influenced the design of the policy at different times. Historically, South Korea relied on external pressures and influences, particularly US law and UN guidelines, to develop much of its human rights law, including special education. This article suggests that development of democratic infrastructure in South Korea led to improvements in the legislative development process in relation to current special education law, and this led to legislation that better identifies and addresses the needs of children with disabilities.

When the Private Sphere Goes Public: Exploring the Issues Facing Family Caregiver Organizations in the Development of Long-Term Care Policies

SUMMARY Though family caregiving forms the backbone of the long-term care system in the United States, long-term care policies have traditionally focused on paid services that frail older people and people with disabilities utilize for their day-to-day functioning. Part of the exclusion of family caregiving from the long-term care discourse stems from the traditional separation of the private sphere, where family caregiving occurs, from the public sphere of policy making. However, the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the National Family Caregiver Support Program (NFCSP) and Medicaid waiver legislation may reflect recent changes in the governments position on their role in addressing issues related to the “private spheres.” In this article, we explore the nature of family caregiving in the United States, the divide between the public and private spheres and provide an overview of family caregiving-related policies and programs in the U.S. In our review, we examine the provisions in the FMLA, NFCSP, and Medicaid waiver legislation that support family caregiving efforts. We also examine the roles of family caregiver organizations in making family caregiving an important element of long-term care policy and influencing policy-making.

Civil Rights for People With Disabilities: Obstacles Related to the Least Restrictive Environment Mandate

State and other social service agencies as well as service providers are governed by laws that often provide unclear guidance regarding the rights of people with disabilities. Although some standards can be, and have been, developed to protect the rights of people with disabilities, all people with disabilities are not the same and therefore, each can require very different types of accommodations. Some aspects of disability rights must be individually based, including the requirement that people with disabilities receive educational services in the least restrictive environment and care in the most inclusive setting. The current interpretation of these mandates suggests that agency decisions rely on professional judgments. Unless professionals work with their clients, this reliance can serve to disempower those whom the law was intended to protect. Though much debated, the legal definition of a person with a disability is unclear. This article examines the concept of disability and that of the least restrictive environment as well as that of the “most inclusive setting,” explains to whom they apply, discusses how they have been defined both in statutes and case law, and elaborates on the role of social workers as a result of the laws reliance on professional judgment in ascertaining client rights.

Elusive public support for us child care policy

ABSTRACT Most U.S. parents are in the paid labor force (US Department of Labor Statistics. (2014). Women in the labor force: A databook. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/women-in-the-labor-force-a-databook-2014.pdf). Using a purposive non-probability sample (N = 415) of primarily upper-middle class, married White Democratic women, this study explores support for government regulation, funding, and provision of child care and the factors and context that may shape their beliefs. Although some respondents held reservations about government involvement, over 80% indicated that government should play a role in regulating care for children in all age categories (0–3, 4–5, and 6–12). Eighty-nine percent supported some form of government financial support for child care, and 58% and 61% saw a role for provision of child care for children age 0–5 and 6–12, respectively. Both regression analyses and qualitative responses indicated that support for a government role in child care was influenced by parents’ own difficulties finding affordable and sufficiently comprehensive care, and the number of children they had. We provide recommendations for how best to target these groups of parents to support child care advocacy campaigns, tapping into their own struggles as a source of empathy for others as well as an impetus to shift toward a more universal notion of government support for child care.

Pregnancy Discrimination and the Law: Implications for Social Work

This article makes the case that social workers and social welfare advocates need to be aware of pregnancy discrimination law to better advocate for individual clients and for changes in the existing law. It is one piece of gender discrimination and inequity. This article reviews the current law around the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, including the recent holding in Young v. UPS and other relevant case law. It also reviews recent changes made by the Affordable Care Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as related state laws designed to address pregnancy discrimination.